Jaguar Land Rover to electrify all its cars by 2020

A mix of fully electric, plug-in hybrid, and mild hybrid vehicles is promised.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has pledged to stop building cars powered solely by petrol and diesel. The company hopes that every car built after 2020 will either be fully electric or a hybrid that makes use of both an electric motor and a traditional petrol-powered engine.

Further Reading

"Every new Jaguar Land Rover model line will be electrified from 2020," Jaguar Land Rover boss Ralf Speth said in a statement. "We will introduce a portfolio of electrified products across our model range, embracing fully electric, plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid vehicles."

The move comes just months after rival Volvo Cars confirmed that it would electrify its entire range of vehicles by 2019. Between 2019 and 2021, Volvo plans to launch five new electric vehicles, while every other car in the range will feature some form of hybrid engine. Honda has also promised that all of its new models from 2020 on will have an electrified variant.

Vehicle manufacturers are coming under increasing pressure to reduce emissions in order to meet stringent European carbon targets, which call for a maximum of 95g of CO2 emissions per kilometre. According to JLR's 2015 sustainability report, its average CO2 emissions were far higher at 164g per kilometre.

Recently, the Scottish government pledged to phase out petrol and diesel cars entirely by 2032—eight years earlier than the UK and France, which hope to ban sales of new cars with internal combustion engines.

Further Reading

While electric cars have been promised for years, it's only in recent years that developments in battery technology have allowed car manufacturers to create fully electric vehicles with practical distance ranges. The 2017 Tesla Model S, which features a 100kWh battery pack, can travel 335 miles on a single charge.

Meanwhile, Hyundai hopes to release its own long-range electric car (greater than 300 miles) by 2021.

Aside from electric vehicles, JLR is also dabbling with driverless cars. The company plans to launch a fleet of more than 100 autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles on UK roads by 2020, with testing taking place along 41 miles of roads near Coventry and Solihull.

I feel sorry for future generations who aren't going to know what it is to have a naturally aspirated V8.

As is the way of things, those future generations likely aren’t going to care. They’ll have their own delights, and probably stare in befuddlement at the idea that we actually had, or even wanted, to drive cars ourselves, to say nothing of engines in particular. Even the idea of operating a manual transmission will be a strange, bizarre concept out of myth and legend.

I feel sorry for future generations who aren't going to know what it is to have a naturally aspirated V8.

As is the way of things, those future generations likely aren’t going to care. They’ll have their own delights, and probably stare in befuddlement at the idea that we actually had, or even wanted, to drive cars ourselves, to say nothing of engines in particular. Even the idea of operating a manual transmission will be a strange, bizarre concept out of myth and legend.

Practically ZERO? is not zero... and I doubt it is practically zero either. Also they still produce particulate matter which is a major issue. Diesel is worse, far worse. but that does not mean your big engine is not still majorly harmful. It also creates a huge amount of CO2 which is killing life on earth...

My XE is a V6 and I agree that it's creamy and lovely but.. I was lucky enough to have 15 minutes in a P1 and honestly.

You need have zero worries about EV performance cars, they are UNHINGED.

I was joking about milk floats, but speed isn't the only consideration. There's something about a large displacement V8 that you don't get in an electric car.

Lots of dead coral? Children with lung disorders? Large areas of land flooded by rising sea levels... Yes huge engines certainly have something you don't get with an electric car...

Don't worry, you'll still get all those benefits as most of the electricity generated to power these cars comes from burning dinosaurs.

Maybe trump would like that, but the reality is that the worlds grids are moving rapidly towards renewables (yes even in the fossil fuel loving USA). The more renewables that come online the cleaner the EVS automatically become! Also that is not to mention that power generation is more efficient and cleaner than burning the fossil fuels in a car engine...

Practically ZERO? is not zero... and I doubt it is practically zero either. Also they still produce particulate matter which is a major issue. Diesel is worse, far worse. but that does not mean your big engine is not still majorly harmful. It also creates a huge amount of CO2 which is killing life on earth...

Can we hold off the hyperbole? For sure we are generating way too much CO2, which has accumulated in the atmosphere over time causing some undesirable side effects, but your comment makes it sound like everyone's choking to death on it.

Remember that humans also breathe out CO2, all 7.2 billion of us, as do other oxygen breathing animals, and its also something Plants need to survive. Laying on hyperbole serves no purpose except for giving deniers a target to ad hominem.

I feel sorry for future generations who aren't going to know what it is to have a naturally aspirated V8.

I'm sure someone wistfully said the same thing about our only form of transportation being horseback riding from place to place. "I feel sorry for future generations who aren't going to know what saddle sores are like, they don't know what they're missing! Ow, my poor, battered spine! Help me get up, Martha, I need to get the pressure off of these damaged kidneys..."

I've idly wondered how complex it would be to add a low geared electric motor to the main driveshaft of my picktruck for towing. It'd certainly make hill starts with several tonnes on a trailer much easier.

The next landrover defender should have:- 2WD/4WD box.- High/Low box (ideally running through a powershift).- Hybrid augmentation for pulling off with heavy load.- Traditional hybrid operation.- As an option; an electrical power take off from the engine using a much heavier alternator (for operating as a mobile electricity generator) - it may even be better to go to a full diesel-electric type drivetrain -- for both fuel consumption and for load lugging.

I think that you may be mistaken. Practically zero is nowhere near zero in the world of emissions.

Current (Euro 6) emissions standards (petrol)

- CO: 1.0g/km- THC: 0.10g/km- NMHC: 0.068g/km- NOx: 0.06g/km

Your car is Euro 2 (petrol)

Euro 2 emissions standards (petrol)- CO: 2.2g/km- HC + NOx: 0.5g/km

It was not until Euro 3 in 2000, that they split out NOX and HC's -

Euro 3 emissions standards (petrol)

- CO: 2.3g/km- THC: 0.20g/km- NOx: 0.15g/km

Your 19 years old V8 is probably emitting (legally) anything up to 10x the NOX and HC's that smaller, lean-burn tech engines allow.

Personally I like the French Crit'Air vignettes scheme, everyone has a sticker in their window which denotes how polluting it is. At present only Crit'Air 1,2,3's are permitted from 8AM to 8PM on weekdays. (4 and 5 are mostly pre 2001 diesels and pre 97 (Euro 3) petrol)

My XE is a V6 and I agree that it's creamy and lovely but.. I was lucky enough to have 15 minutes in a P1 and honestly.

You need have zero worries about EV performance cars, they are UNHINGED.

I was joking about milk floats, but speed isn't the only consideration. There's something about a large displacement V8 that you don't get in an electric car.

The lovely smell of pollution in the morning? Hundreds of thousands of early preventable respiratory related deaths?

Still Jaguar is still going to make internal combustion vehicles after 2020 and that could mean a V8 combined with a mild hybrid which does basically nothing except maybe improve city fuel economy by 1 mpg. I hope they do more but the statement gives them a lot of lattitude is what they actually do.

a few manufacturers are claiming this now, but really, aren't they being forced to by legislature?

No not really and if they use the word mild hybrid they really aren't promising much. I mean it is better than nothing but you can make a gas guzzling smog spewing piece of shit that is a mild hybrid. In mild hybrids the electric motor is downright tiny and low voltage. So are the battery packs. It doesn't do much at least no mild hybrid released to date has.

Now if Jaguar had said in 2020 100% of vehicles were plug in hybrids of BEVs that would be quite impressive and mean something.

The headline does not match the fact,the quote is "Every new Jaguar Land Rover model line will be electrified from 2020,"that means when a new model line comes out in 2020 or beyond at least one of the variants will be BEV or hybrid. There is nothing to say that all of its cars that it produces from 2020 will be electrified. With new 48v electrics it is pretty straightforward to make any new vehicle a mild hybrid.

I think that you may be mistaken. Practically zero is nowhere near zero in the world of emissions.

Seriously, the formation of NOx is very dependent on high peak temperatures. I can't speak to the v8 in question but if you have low compression or really efficient ignition NOx emissions really do fall off the face of the earth.

I feel sorry for future generations who aren't going to know what it is to have a naturally aspirated V8.

I'm sure someone wistfully said the same thing about our only form of transportation being horseback riding from place to place. "I feel sorry for future generations who aren't going to know what saddle sores are like, they don't know what they're missing! Ow, my poor, battered spine! Help me get up, Martha, I need to get the pressure off of these damaged kidneys..."

I think what they will look back on with disbelief is that we really did kill thousands (actually around 1.25 million globally) every year in our chosen transport system. And that is just the road traffic deaths, it does not count the damage caused by air pollution. It does not count the serious injuries which probably exceed 5 million a year.

It is totally insane. If you were to propose such a system, with such effects, today, it would never get started. The liability, the health and safety issues would rightly rule it out of serious consideration.

And yet, we carry on with it, and we ridicule anyone who seriously proposes to get fast moving vehicles away from areas in which people are trying to live, work and play.

I do not think there is the slightest chance that we will see the present system continue but with electric cars rather than ICE ones. And if it did happen, it would not solve the real problem, which is that we have too many fast vehicles independently driven.

The great thing about the proposals is that it will become clear that it cannot be done, or only if we reduce car usage by about 90%. Then maybe we will start to consider doing that. Take back our streets, and make the cities liveable again.

Added: and make walking and biking safe and pleasant again, and improve health in consequence!

Practically ZERO? is not zero... and I doubt it is practically zero either. Also they still produce particulate matter which is a major issue. Diesel is worse, far worse. but that does not mean your big engine is not still majorly harmful. It also creates a huge amount of CO2 which is killing life on earth...

Can we hold off the hyperbole? For sure we are generating way too much CO2, which has accumulated in the atmosphere over time causing some undesirable side effects, but your comment makes it sound like everyone's choking to death on it.

Remember that humans also breathe out CO2, all 7.2 billion of us, as do other oxygen breathing animals, and its also something Plants need to survive. Laying on hyperbole serves no purpose except for giving deniers a target to ad hominem.

It is not really hyperbole. By 2030 it is predicted that 90% of the worlds coral will be dead! 25% of all marine life depends directly on coral reefs. Millions of people and most other marine life depend directly on that marine life, and millions more people depend on the other marine life. Our oceans are dying at a rapid rate, 50% of Australias Great barrier reef is already dead.

On land some areas are becoming deserts and others are experiencing massive flooding far more often. Habitats are being destroyed which will affect the balance of wildlife and the food chain which will end up affecting Humans on a large scale.

Now add to that the sea level rise which will potentially see 1 third of Florida covered in water by 2050 and something like 1 fifth of London among other places and then add to that the adverse weather (that can be seen right now in the gulf of mexico and the Caribbean which affects many more millions of people and you can see that it is not really hyperbole.

I feel sorry for future generations who aren't going to know what it is to have a naturally aspirated V8.

True, but have you ever driven an EV? They have one gear in the transmission, so there's acceleration like you wouldn't believe.

I'd love to try, but I have been a passenger in them quite regularly. My local cab firm uses them ( the drivers say they hate them because they have to go off the road to charge, but that's another discussion altogether ).